The Bush Administration and The Pentagon have shown their desire to "support our troops".I plan to outline these travesties to our soldiers in a series of letters.My son is deployed in iraq,and I have a vested interest in these issues.
The congress recently passed a spending bill with an amendment that "reimburses soldiers for the purchase of certain protective equipment".The wording of a bill passed over a year ago was strengthened to require the Pentagon to reimburse these soldiers and their families-prior to this,it was simply a recommendation.The program, which is effective immediately, would allow reimbursement for combat helmets, ballistic eye protection, hydration systems, and tactical vests, including a variety of body armor inserts to protect a soldier's throat, groin, and collar.
Under the guidelines, reimbursement for each item cannot exceed $1,100, and the items become government property and must be turned in to the Defense Department, unless they are destroyed on no longer usable.The problem is,none of the soldiers have seen a check,after a year of this legislation being in place.I have a problem with our soldiers having to do this in the first place.http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2005/10/06/buil...
I have a challenge for all of you good citizens.Instead of buying a yellow ribbon magnet from China,donate that time and energy to writing your congressman,telling them to put pressure on Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.Send a letter to the president asking him to expedite the execution of this legislation.It is inexcusable for a nation at war to send their soldiers unprepared.

Recent events in New York City, involving a very well executed and definitely warranted response to by Mayor Bloomberg and Chief Kelly of NYPD to a terrorism threat, reminded me of a great article I read in July (and saved!). Here's an excerpt from an interview with its author, William Finnegan:

Before 9/11, the N.Y.P.D. had fewer than two dozen officers working the terrorism beat full time. Today, there are about a thousand. Crime-fighting is still the N.Y.P.D.â€™s primary mission, but counterterrorism has really expanded the operational and conceptual boundaries of traditional police work. There are N.Y.P.D. detectives permanently stationed overseas, for instance, in half a dozen different countries. Ray Kelly, the Commissioner, has gone way outside of the traditional police-recruitment channels, looking for people with military, intelligence, and diplomatic backgrounds, people with deep knowledge of international terrorist organizations. Whatâ€™s more, he has comprehensively persuaded the entire department to think of counterterrorism as a fundamental part of what cops call the Job.

In the July 25, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, William Finnegan wrote a breath-catching report called "The Terrorism Beat," describing how the NYPD has stepped into the huge gap in Homeland Security as applied to New York City -- to the benefit of all of us.

The excerpt above is from an interview with Finnegan about the piece; the interview is still available online and touches on many of the important points. But you've got to read the original article, about 20 pages.